Push Not the River

by James Conroyd Martin

  She would resort to more pointed measures. The opportunity would come, and if she could not win him, she would at least avenge herself in full measure against him and against Anna, whose appearance in her life would have ruined everything, were it not for her own ingenuity. They would both pay.

  Henryk arrived at last. Had he known, Zofia would later muse, that the news he brought her this day could have bought for him an afternoon of delights in Zofia’s bedchamber, he would have played it to his advantage. But his simple mind was too thickened by her beauty.

  The information came after Henryk produced the most recent litany of Count Stelnicki’s activities. Henryk spilled it out without an inflection or blink of the eyes: “Oh, and in a fortnight Count Stelnicki is to attend the ball of Countess Lubomirska.”

  “What?” Zofia gasped. It was so unlike Jan, who didn’t go to purely social events. “How do you know?”

  “I was at the next table. I heard everything. He doesn’t want to go, but his friends convinced him. They seemed to imply that this would be the last of the great parties for some time.” Henryk looked puzzled. “Do you know why that is, Zofia?”

  “No, I don’t. And I don’t care. Tell me about this ball, Henryk, before I turn you upside down and shake the words out of you. You took your sweet time to get to this news.”

  Henryk appeared startled and confused by Zofia’s sudden zeal. “It’s to be held in a fortnight.”

  “Yes, yes, you said that.”

  “It’s to be a masquerade.”

  “What?”

  “A masquerade,” he repeated, “You know, Zofia, when the guests all come in—”

  “Idiot! I know what a masquerade is. Did you learn anything else?”

  Henryk looked hurt. “Only that the count is to go as Emperor Justinian.”

  This is too good to be true, Zofia thought. Her chance had come. If she couldn’t fish an invitation, she would go anyway. Masquerades were incredibly easy to infiltrate. She had done just that a half dozen times. It was always the most marvelous fun.

  While Henryk droned on about some insipid costume ball he had attended once, Zofia began to plot: the invitation, the costume, the pleasurable snare that would at once bring down Jan and Anna.

  “Zofia,” Henryk was saying, “just who is this Justinian? Is he emperor of some tiny continental nation?”

  “Why, Henryk, you are a fool,” Zofia laughed. “Justinian ruled the Byzantine Empire in the sixth century!”

  “Oh.”

  Poor oaf, Zofia thought. Henryk was incapable of discerning the meanness in her laugh.

  36

  ANNA SLEPT FITFULLY, AWAKENING TO find herself alone in the hall. The hearth’s fire flickered weakly. It must be very late, she thought. For a moment she was certain she heard something stir in the darkness. Her first thought was of the old woman, and her heart tightened. Long, long minutes ticked by, with the only sound a faint sputtering from the hearth. She found herself staring up at the blurred and swaying shadows on the timbered ceiling, slowly losing thought.

  It was then that she felt a strange heat at the base of her spine. Some minutes passed and the warmth grew feverish, radiating down through her thighs to her legs to the very bones of her feet and toes and simultaneously up through her upper body, streaming along her spine and into her head. The heat carried with it an intense energy that rendered her captive. She lay there, helpless, unable to move or speak.

  The force that ran through her body suddenly caused her to shake uncontrollably, as if with palsy. White light exploded in her head like so many capsizing stars. Her heartbeat accelerated and a strange, erratic breathing pattern took over. She experienced then what seemed like a hundred emotions at once, some delightful, some terrifying. She plunged into a swirling labyrinth of love and hate, fear and desire, strength and weakness.

  Visions flew at her. Multitudes of people. Loving faces, angry faces, blank faces. Strange as well as familiar visages loomed in front of her, moved down toward her, dissipating, one making way for the next. Anna stared at them as if in search of a particular one. Or perhaps in search of all of them and a life gone by. She saw her beloved grandmother. Childhood friends. Peasants from the Sochaczew estate. And then her parents—her father’s face radiant like a god’s, her mother’s with the smile that was not a smile. Had they come for her? Were they to be reunited? Was she to have a family once again?

  Her parents’ faces seemed then to fuse, their features blending into one image, unrecognizable, dark and threatening. The eyes were neither that of her father’s blue nor her mother’s violet-gray. Now, the hooded brow sheltered eyes of fire. Still, these were the eyes of someone she knew. Someone she hated and feared. Her heart convulsed. Who was it? The red eyes glowed and though Anna realized eyes could not laugh, she knew that these orbs of evil were laughing at her.

  The eyes moved down upon her as if to possess her. “No,” Anna wanted to scream, then did scream. Or did she?

  Somehow, she slowly gathered within herself a strength that grew and grew, until she forced out of her body the foreign energy that had fired the hideous vision. Her body stopped shaking. Her breathing fell into a normal rhythm. That she was able, of her own power, to dispel the sensation amazed her.

  Anna lay for a long time inert and spent. This had not been a dream, of that she was certain. She had been awake, yet in an ethereal state of complete helplessness and subject to forces beyond her imagination. It was only when she recalled the eyes of fire that her memory colored them with another hue. Yes, they glowed with a kind of red heat, but they were brown. And Anna suddenly knew to whom they belonged. Where minutes before a heat had run along her spine, a chill now encased her. She could hear her teeth chattering.

  The eyes seemed diabolical, indeed. She could not help but wonder whether Nelka hadn’t put the notion into her head with her talk of the devil. Anna knew of forbidden books that narrated lurid accounts of the devil violating bodies of virgins and inseminating in them seeds of corruption. And weren’t the eyes of the devil reputed to be red? A shudder ran through her.

  Were such things truly possible? Had the woman somehow sensed the conditions of her impending motherhood?

  Anna tried to put Nelka out of her mind. No, the eyes were not the devil’s. They were the eyes of one born of flesh and blood, eyes more brown than red. They were the eyes of her attacker at the pond.

  Anna’s hand moved up involuntarily to her parched lips. The eyes in this dream that wasn’t a dream might be the key to the identity of her assailant—and of her child’s father.

  Whose eyes were they?

  She had never met Feliks Paduch, the peasant who had sworn retribution on her father’s house and family. What color were his eyes? Were they his? Was he the one?

  The chill permeated her body. She pulled the heavy fur up around her neck. In truth, she knew she had no fervent desire to see those eyes again. Even if it meant not ever knowing to whom they belonged.

  Beneath the fur, her hands moved down to caress her stirring womb. Of one thing she was certain: this was not the devil’s child. No, not his.

  Anna’s strength grew as she waited out the days until the arrival of Father Florian and her return to Warsaw. She lived to see Jan again. The longing for him was there, always there, even if it were attached to a guilt that would not let her relish the thought of him for any length of time.

  The nourishing foods, herbs, and potions with which Owl Eyes plied her coaxed the return of her health. The soreness in the throat, the heaviness in the chest, the coughing and sniffling were all on the wane.

  Anna observed the daily rituals of the clan. While old Owl Eyes, the women, and the young ones tended their tasks, the men hunted. Supper was the social event of the day, a time of good spirits. The clan kept a stable of horses, numberless hunting dogs, and several falcons. Preserved fruits and vegetables attested to large summer gardens. The families supplied Baron Galki with a portion of their yield in game and harvest. Anna was su
rprised that such a feudal clan existed in modern times. But, for all their backwardness and simplicity, these people seemed more secure and happier than any she had known, peasant or noble.

  Nelka was noticeably absent though Anna still sensed her presence somewhere about. Antek and Stefan stayed with the clan in the days before Father Florian’s arrival. They were glad to do it, they assured her, as it gave them time with their father and the opportunity to hunt with the men. Day by day, they kept her company, each taking a shift, and in this way Anna got to know each one.

  While they were twins, so alike in appearance, Anna was to find how unalike they were beneath the skin.

  Antek was a talker. He and Anna conversed incessantly. Fascinated by her tales of Warsaw and the nobility there, he never exhausted his store of questions for her. He even seemed interested in Anna’s life with her parents on the estate at Sochaczew. She found him remarkably well-versed in politics, too, and that he shared Anna’s support of the Constitution. In a brief span of time, she grew close to him and found herself confiding much of what had happened following her parents’ deaths.

  Anna spoke of her unhappy marriage, her love for another, her concern for her child. But she couldn’t bring herself to relate the attack at the pond or the knowledge that her husband had arranged her murder. She felt relieved in what she did tell him, however. Antek was warm and understanding. He was, she felt, the brother she had never had.

  Stefan was a stroke of a different brush. And it was not long before Anna felt uncomfortable in his presence. He was charming and attentive, but he and Anna had to struggle to find common ground. And there was more to it than that, she came to realize. Each time she allowed herself to look into his serious eyes, she could see his attraction.

  This unnerved her.

  Oddly, Stefan seemed to regard her as if she were not married and five months with child. Sometimes he made some awkward or ill-timed comment, too, that was nothing less than flirtation. Anna put this down to the lusty nature she had spied in him from the first. He was a man much concerned with women.

  His behavior was out of place, she told herself, but certainly harmless. I should be flattered!

  Preparations for Father Florian’s coming began long before the Sunday dawn.

  While the women of the clan plucked wild fowl and carefully seasoned their soups and the stew that would simmer for hours, the men, who didn’t hunt on this day, occupied themselves with minor household tasks. There was a quiet excitement about them which was not lost on the children, who were quick to express their glee. This was an occasion eagerly awaited by the peasants, a break from the sameness of their days.

  Magda, an older daughter of Lucyna, braided Anna’s hair. Then she and Lucyna led Anna to a wooden tub. The men had prepared the heated water and Anna was the first to use it. She luxuriated in the pristine warmth, assured that her return to Warsaw was imminent.

  When the clan members assembled in the unheated chapel at mid-morning, they were all well-groomed and dressed in their simple but immaculate Sunday Mass clothes. The twins’ garments were considerably more sophisticated. The sashes at their waists, emblematic of the proud Polish male, were particularly striking.

  Anna detested her own appearance. The women had attempted to sew and clean her dress, but it remained a sad sight. Over it Anna wore a homespun shawl and on her head a lace covering.

  A fine impression I will make upon Father Florian, she thought. Most likely I’ll be mistaken for a charwoman.

  The twins were on either side of Anna as they knelt on the chipped stone floor awaiting the priest.

  The customary arrival time came . . . and went.

  “How are you feeling?” Antek asked.

  “Fine,” Anna said. Actually, she was famished. Everyone had been fasting since the previous night, so as to receive Communion.

  After kneeling for some time, the worshippers sat on the hard, backless benches.

  Antek excused himself, saying he was going to keep a lookout for the priest.

  Anna worried that Father Florian would not come. If that were the case, how long would it be until some other travel plan were worked out for her?

  To occupy her mind, she surveyed the ruined chamber. Parts of the high-beamed ceiling had rotted away and had not been replaced so that she could see—and feel on her hands and upturned face—faint flurries of snow. In gilded niches along the side walls were life-size statues of saints and apostles, the heads of which were nearly faceless from age. The marble altar was in deplorable condition, but the golden tabernacle gleamed.

  In the wall behind and above the altar was a gaping circular hole where a stained glass window once had been. Anna could see out to where the bleak, white hills fused into a hazy meeting with the endless, gray winter sky.

  Shivering, Anna pulled her cloak about her.

  Suddenly, a faint, steady, rustling sound drew her attention again to the rafters. There, a bird—a ring-dove—was winging its way about in confusion. Stray birds must have been a common thing, Anna thought, because it seemed that only she took notice of this one. Trapped, the beautiful bird was becoming increasingly frightened. Anna watched as it flew from beam to beam, then in swift circles, in its random search for a way out. When a few feathers fell noiselessly to the ground, some of the clan members looked up.

  Anna’s heart tore. She feared the dove would kill herself in its panic.

  Just then the dove descended into a whooshing decline and glided the length of the chapel, disappearing through the glassless aperture behind the altar.

  For the moment, Anna’s heart soared, too.

  “Stefan, is it often that the priest—” Anna stopped before she could complete her question about the priest’s tardiness. Nelka had turned about in her place and shot her a dart of hatred that halted her in mid-sentence.

  Anna stared back.

  The sound of the heavy chapel doors swinging open broke the silence. Anna and the others turned to see Antek with the priest.

  Silently, neither looking left nor right, the tall man took long strides up the aisle, moving directly to the sanctuary.

  Antek came to his place at Anna’s side.

  Everyone stood. With his back to the little congregation, the priest immediately concerned himself with the business of setting the altar for Mass. His tonsured hair was graying, and the crown of his head shone like a looking glass. His large frame was draped in a dark brown robe that fell to his sodden boots.

  Anna assumed that Antek had already told him of her predicament. She had thought he would seek an introduction before starting the service. He did not. Neither did he acknowledge the faithful clan he had kept waiting so long.

  Anna’s heart seemed to pause for the moment. Was this the man who would help her return home?

  The priest turned around then to face the congregation. The Mass was about to begin. He was probably fifty, she guessed. His face was florid and plain. He had small eyes, so deeply set as to hide their color and intent. Anna judged him to be in an ill humor. His actions had seemed perfunctory; his face fell into stern folds.

  Anna’s attention was brought up short when she realized his eyes had stopped on her. Her first impulse was to look away. Then she steeled her nerves and returned his gaze.

  The red of the priest’s face deepened. He turned around immediately to finish his preparations.

  He thinks me audacious, Anna thought. In his demeanor she detected conflict. What if this were but a blind wall in the labyrinth into which she had somehow stumbled? She worried that each day might be bringing Antoni closer.

  Anna prayed.

  The priest now descended the three short steps and strode to where Anna stood.

  Antek drew Anna out into the aisle and introduced her to the priest.

  “May Jesus be merciful to you,” he said “and to the souls of your traveling companions.” He held his hand out for Anna to kiss his ring. “Of course, I will do whatever may be in my power to see you restored to Warsaw.�
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  Anna was weak from fasting and waiting in the cold chapel, so she remained standing. This must be shocking to the peasants, she thought, but she could not help it.

  “Would the Countess wish to make her confession before Mass?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  Perhaps her first impression of the priest had been too harsh. After all, this man had come to her from the chapel of the Black Madonna. Might he be her miracle?

  The confessional, situated at the front of the chapel, consisted of nothing more than a chair for the priest and a wooden kneeler for the penitent. Anna whispered to him of the carriage ordeal, describing it in detail only at his request. She tried to be brief, knowing that the peasants were as tired and hungry as she.

  Anna told the priest of Louis and Babette and her own guilt at her impatience with them. Father Florian assured her she was guiltless. “Often, when one survives and others do not,” he said, “there is this sense of guilt. Put it aside, my child.”

  Anna could not bring herself to tell of her terrible suspicions about Antoni. They seemed too unreal to put into words. And she sensed that the priest would not believe her.

  “Is yours a marriage of love?” the priest asked.

  The question came unannounced and Anna could only stare blankly. What strange power had possessed him to ask her such a thing? “No,” she said at last, “my marriage to Antoni was a . . . a kind of arranged marriage.”

  “Has he beat you?”

  “He struck me . . . once.”

  “I see.” His eyes assessed her. “My dear,” he sighed, “you are young. Marriages are not like those of a young girl’s dreams or those depicted in romantic books. A marriage is a marriage when both partners bring to that relationship their fullest cooperation. It is a communion of spirits. The wife should be more concerned for her husband’s happiness than for her own, and in this way happiness will find her.”

  “Should the husband not be concerned with his wife’s happiness?”